Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
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A Vagabond’s Guide to America
I’ve been everywhere, man. I’ve been everywhere.
After moving to my sixth state and driving cross country four times, I thought I’d add my two cents on the best and the worst of some of these places. Summer is here and no one wants to be home, so make of my descriptions what you will. I can only speak on my own observations and experiences, and not yours, your buddy’s, or Steve–damn him.
Texas
Starting off with my least favorite state, if you want to live in a state that ranks dead last in almost every category, but still thinks it’s number 1, I have the state for you. Ranking #1 in high school drop-outs, and striving to top the charts in teen pregnancy, crime, obesity, bad public transport, traffic, low paying jobs, little to no unions, bad healthcare, few worker’s rights, dirty drinking water, and some of the worst schools, Texas proves that you can in fact mess with it. To top it off, the weather sucks and outside of Austin and San Antonio, so does the nightlife. If you haven’t seen the movie “Vengeance” with BJ Novak, I’d recommend it; It captures the personality pretty accurately. But, Californians still love to move to Austin, because “at least its not always on fire”, which incidentally should be Texas’ new, more accurate motto. Not to completely crap on it, the museum district and aquarium in Houston are pretty great.
Washington
Ok, so I was only in Seattle a month when I was training to be a post-mortem technologist, BUT, I still feel I got a good feel of the city. After all, it’s not that big. On the plus side, as someone who gets sunburned under fluorescent lighting, I actually liked Seattle’s weather. The food was good. The people were friendly. You could smell the gum wall from two blocks away. It’s a pretty city, but small if you are used to large cities. If you’re outdoorsy, and don’t mind the isolation (the next “big” city is Portland), Seattle is a great place for you. However, it should be noted that Seattle has some of the worst traffic in the nation.
Wisconsin
The American Midwest is an odd duck. On one hand, it’s supposed to be the “apple-pie-white-picket-fence-main-street-usa-heartland part of the country that politicians keep informing the rest of the country that this is the “real America”.
This is largely due to the fact that the rest of the country is allegedly imaginary, dreamt of and manifested by the Great Gazoo.
On the other hand, the Midwest seems to have intense problems that even us soy-latte-venti drinkers would find shocking. Namely, the Midwest has a high percentage of issues with alcoholism, opioid addiction, high divorce rates, high abuse rates, high poverty rates, and even quite the monopoly on serial killers that are mentioned so casually because it’s so mundane at this point.
The Midwest just has two widely opposing sides that are best seen in its cities vs rural areas. Granted, this is true anywhere, but it’s much more pronounced in the Midwest where Westboro Baptist screaming, hate-filled alcoholics with four divorces under their belt is the norm in the countryside, and hippy-vegan-pot-farmers are normal in the cities. On top of that, the Midwest has a lot of hole in the wall quirky places you won’t find anywhere else. House on the Rock remains one of my favorite off the beaten path trips. It’s a contradiction wrapped in an enigma, smothered in Ranch.
Nevada
Vegas is one of the most American cities I’ve ever been to: it’s chaotic, fun, questionably functional, not for the elderly, and was in its prime when it was run by the mob. The great thing about Nevada is that the people are surprisingly nice (except in Henderson; I’ll tell you why). Vegas is fun for a year, then you’ve done everything and it’s time to move on (which is pretty much what I did).
The food is terrible, but you’re in a desert, so…you get what you get. For those of you who like the countryside better, Nevada has a lot of cool, well preserved ghost towns that real cowboys would live in and travel through in the 19th century.
As for how the city is run…like I said, it was better when the mob ran it. Now, the city is run by….Mormons. Yep. Mormons. They will passive aggressively tell you how they are better than you and preach the evils of stripping, sex, alcohol, and gambling all while making their money from institutions that sell these services. They get around their religious laws by claiming that it’s only immoral to “participate” in such services, not to own and make a lot of money off them…all while discreetly participating in them anyway while their wives are at home in Henderson with their kids: McKaylah, McKinsey, Braxton, Paxton, Bralaxton, and Amy. I often incurred the wrath of many a khaki-wearing missionary due to my love of attending costume parties.
New York
Tied with New Orleans as my favorite city so far, New York has a reputation for a reason: great food, incredible nightlife, some of the best in the arts, amazing job opportunities, and beautiful city. I was never bored in NYC. Even when you leave the city, New York still has a lot going for it upstate. The famous Sleepy Hollow is just North of Yonkers (which is where Lionsgate is building a new studio). Woodstock was there. Poughkeepsie is a cool, eccentric town filled with salt-of-the-earth living side by side with Hollywood stars. Niagara Falls is right on the other side.
Like the rest of the East coast, it is a beautiful state filled with charming, small towns. That being said: rent. Rent sucks. I got VERY lucky scoring a rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan during covid. Before covid, you could get a studio in Manhattan for 1700 to 1900 a month. After covid…you’re lucky if you can get a studio for under 2300 despite the fact that there are over 400 apartment buildings that are empty right now. Before covid, 2018 had the lowest crime on record in the history of New York. After covid…fuggetaboutit.
Louisiana
Welcome to the home of the original “Sin City”. New Orleans ties with being one of my favorite spots due to its history and unbelievable architecture. New Orleans is a former French Pirate port, turned Spanish hideaway, back to a borderline French prison colony, home of American Voodoo, scrappy battle ground of the War of 1812, twice burned down city, and current title holder of most haunted city in all of North America.
Now you can see why I like this city. That being said, it’s not all roses. The healthcare is terrible, the rest of Louisiana isn’t as cool, it’s pretty isolated, it’s hard to find a lot of good and services you can find in other cities, and the food is really bad for you. And the weather. Fuck this weather.
That being said, along with NYC, this place holds some of the nicest people ever. Mixed with Southern charm and French “devil may care” attitude, New Orleans is a great place to rest your feet and take it easy. And hide from the law; That’s still a big one here.
Fun Mentions
So these are the places I’ve been to, but haven’t lived in. Nevertheless, I would recommend them.
Basically, anywhere in the East Coast is amazing. The people are friendly, have a sense of community, history, beautiful weather, healthy/tasty food, great balance of outdoor and nightlife activities, and better policies.
Massachusetts is known for having the best healthcare and educational system in the county. Both rank even higher than Canada in many areas. People live longer there, Boston has good public transport, and its has great seaside New England towns.
Philly was really cool (and a hell of a lot bigger than I expected). The history, the buildings, the food, all of it was good. Just don’t go to Kensington. Ever.
Delaware has pretty countryside, but crappy cities.
Alaska, the swamps of Southern Louisiana, the coasts of Florida, Colorado’s Rockies, Utah’s canyons, any part of New England, and West Virginia all have beautiful countryside.
Dubuque, Iowa, the Twin Cities in Minnesota, DC, and New Haven, CT are charming cities to visit. North Chicago is beautiful, just don’t go South; crab walk sideways until you’re in Michigan.
Not-So-Fun Mentions
So, as you can see in the picture, no one lives In Texarkana. No one needs to live there. Places that are built on boarder states, tend to be suck. A lot. And there’s a lot of murder. Don’t live in an indecisive city that doesn’t know what state it’s in.
You know what else sucks? The Plains. This includes, but isn’t limited to: Nebraska, Iowa, East Colorado (before you get to Denver), and Non-Chicago Illinois. This is where dreams go to die. The landscape is ugly, the cities are ugly, there is no culture, no nightlife, no flavor in the food, and no flavor in the people.
There is: an abundance of religious themed billboards, lots of highways, people “who don’t trust outsiders”, corn, and no bookstores (but plenty of bars that sell watered-down shitty beer).
True story: I drove over two hours from Nebraska to Denver and did not see a single car, building, person, tree, or bush the entire time until I hit the city. There’s nothing. Just one highway and flat plains. It was terrifying.
I drove down Route 66 after I saw the Grand Canyon and went through the American Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico, and one end of Texas to the other. I’ll put it this way: I’ve never seen so many meth labs in trailer parks before. Everyone is angry to be there. There is something about the Southwest that makes people distrustful and rude. Not a single person was nice in those states. They were all just pissed off they had to be there. Or that they didn’t have meth. Hard to tell.
By the way, Lubbock sucks. Imagine buying a Sims City game and not having enough money to buy anything other than square office buildings. Then put three office buildings and an ugly college in one place, give up, and stop playing the game because you’re too hungover. That’s how 90% of Texas looks, minus the strip clubs and a TGI Fridays.
The Deep South, like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia have pretty Oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. Every now and again, they may have a nice city/town like Savannah. The rest of it looks like how you would imagine a collection of states that have no money, a history of hate, little to no education, a rampant drug problem, and a lot of guns would look like. Imagine handing the My Pillow Guy a fistful of crack, a loaded gun, taking away his money, then releasing him out in extreme heat.
Yeah, I drove with my doors locked.
So, that’s it! The good, the bad, and the ugly. Again, take of it what you will. I can only say, see it for yourself and keep track of how much gas is in your car.
Bon Voyage!
Cult movies and You: A Forbidden Love Story
The first “cult movie” I saw that didn’t involve David Bowie singing to goblins was probably Donnie Darko.
It was also the first grown-up movie I saw that didn’t involve men in gangs shooting each other.
I wish I could say I picked it up at Blockbuster because it seemed intellectually stimulating. In reality, I picked it up because the creepy bunny face scared the shit out of me in a way that made me feel older and sophisticated.
The movie started off with a misunderstood youth who saw the world in a way no one else did. No one saw his genius and he had to sacrifice himself for the sake of the suburban sheep who “just didn’t get it”. And he–Yeah. Okay… I’m starting to see why a ten year old kid would love this movie.
Was it a little pretentious? Yes.
Were there a LOT of plot holes that made it seem like the studio hired and fired ten writers throughout the making of the movie? Yes.
Was it all bad?
Well, it made a ten year old kid look up what quantum physics was and the theories on multiple timelines so…probably no.
Granted, I probably didn’t learn anything useful from the perspective of an actual physicist, but it made me take an interest in a topic I had never seen discussed in a movie before.
I developed an interest in cult and underground films from that point on that was criticized by a few adults at the time. Many argued that cult films were “low-brow” and “vulgar”, essentially arguing that there was nothing to take away from these cult films.
But isn’t there?
A cult film is often defined as a film that deals with off-beat material, is filmed in an unorthodox way, and/or has a passionate following of those who admire the obscure.
So to focus on a few cult films I like, or at least stick in my mind long after the screen goes blank, let’s see if there is more than meets the eye.
We’ll start off with probably the most controversial one:
Fritz the Cat.
I’m glad I saw this movie recently, because like a lot of millennials I probably would have had a knee-jerk reaction to the use of vulgar slurs and gratuitous objectification and wouldn’t have liked it.
However, I saw this movie after living in Manhattan for 3 years.
Now, I’m stunned how little has changed among how the upper-class and upper-middle class NYU students talk to people.
If you haven’t seen the movie, here are a few examples:
“You spend years and years with your nose buried in these goddamn tomes. While the world is passin’ you by… and all the stuff to see and all th’ kicks an’ girls are all out there… an’ ME, a writer an’ a poet who should be havin’ adventures an’ experiencing all the diversities and paradoxes and ironies of life!”
“Fritz:
I know about the race problem – I’ve studied the race problem!
Duke:
You don’t know nothing about the race problem! You’ve got to be a crow to know about the race problem!”
“There’s the one who keeps the bosses in power! He’s the one who’s holding you down! We shall overcome!”
From the condescending, passively racist way the sheltered and affluent speak to the black characters by talking at them not to them, to manipulating ideas of “enlightenment” to get away with being exploitatively sexist, Fritz weirdly and accurately captures the voice of the well meaning revolutionists who have never lived off their parent’s income or suffered actual hardship and compensate by disassociating themselves from “society” that they actively criticize but are inactive to do anything constructive about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly been accused of being a dreamer myself for hoping for a non-corrupt economy, a healthier planet, and more fair, equal world. But I’ve also learned in my years of being independent and exposed to people in unimaginable circumstances that life is not only unfair, but many issues are way more complicated than a semester’s class of intro to sociology would lead you to believe.
Fritz the Cat takes the audience on an acid-filled, non-politically correct, 70’s trip through the eyes of a sheltered yuppie who preaches about his vast knowledge of the proletariat while speaking over the voices of the genuinely disenfranchised…and often getting them hurt or killed because he never listed to people who were actually at the bottom.
Since the 70’s, so much has changed in terms of how people talk, but nothing has changed in terms of how people think.
Speaking of living in a society…
Remember that poster that every guy at your college had in his dorm room?
Well, it’s back bitches.
It is back for a whole new generation of preppy boys that still haven’t figured out the book was intentionally written with gay undertones by an LQBTQ identifying novelist.
So why is the movie popular with so many boys who used to bully the gay kids at school?
The writer, Chuck Palahniuk, has alluded to in the past that many boys now seem to be suffering from a lack of good male figures and are becoming increasingly emotionally inarticulate, leading them to seek out any semblance of masculinity they can mimic without thinking about depth.
Granted, the idea that boys don’t have good role models in either their waking life or on the big screen has been a point of debate for a while now. In recent years, people have argued that incels and pick up artists have gotten as much attention as they have because boys main examples on being a man revolve around getting a pretty girl–even he knows nothing about her and they have no chemistry. Being a man in pop culture often revolves around garish flair, not substance or dealing with the full spectrum of human emotion.
Palahniuk addresses this in 2018’s the Guardian: “It’s fascinating that the group that can’t get laid is now adopting the same language. It shows how few options men have in terms of metaphors: a skimpy inventory of images. They have The Matrix – there’s a lot of red pill, blue pill stuff – and they have Fight Club. The only other thing is Dead Poets Society, where men go into a cavern and say poems to each other, and they’re not going to adopt that.”
This is often why these same boys will miss the massage of the writer: hyper-masculinity isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Crying is ok. Talking about your feelings is ok.
Obsessively following a cult leader who encourages you to beat the shit out of each other because you see him as a father figure is…
I mean, that’s bad, right?
We can agree that’s bad. No?
Ah Jesus. Just get used to seeing that damn poster in your nephew’s room until he googles who Chuck Palahniuk is.
Which brings me to my next movie: Pink Flamingos (among others). Let’s be honest, all of Water’s movies are cult films.
If you have seen John Water’s films, congratulations on graduating from film school.
If you haven’t, congratulations on not knowing what Pink Flamingos is.
Like a lot of kids, I saw Cry Baby and Hairspray as an introduction to blue-collar Americana through loving eyes of an ironic bystander. These movies were weird, messy, ugly, and camp.
And I loved them.
I’ve lived in a few “raw” places ranging from Houston to Vegas to the Midwest to see that despite Waters earning the title “pope of trash”, there may be more to his perspective of humanizing the forgotten and uncomfortable.
Weirdly, this message seems to be more poignant as there is a bigger and bigger chasm between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in an increasing number of countries.
As the middle classes shrink everyday while gig economies and people living check to check become the norm, humanizing the salt of earth crowd has a new meaning for people who thought they would have the American dream like their parents–only to have it ripped out of their hands and then bitch-slapped with a sack of corporate gold.
For decades, Americans thought this would never be them. And for people who were already the “them”, they must have been bad people who deserved their lifestyles because America always rewards good, honest workers.
Right?
As that illusion fades away more and more by the day, taking a second look at the economically forgotten and seeing them without scornful eyes may actually be the ticket for more American voters to look for more solutions at helping people who didn’t exactly choose their socioeconomic standing.
But then again, I’ve been called a dreamer.
If art reflects life, take a second look at so called “cult films”.
As your life changes, so does your perspective. There may be something to learn from them–vulgarities and all.
Staring Down the Rabbit Hole of Possible and Total Economic Collapse
The other day I read in Business Insider that over half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
Personally, I think that’s bullshit.
$1.73 Trillion–yes TRILLION–is our nation’s debt.
And that’s just in student loans. Student loans, which, by the way, have surpasses credit card debt for the first time in history.
Credit card debt is over 800 billion. The US owes China over 1 trillion. Over 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 dollars in their saving account. Many more don’t even have savings. As many as 22 million Americans are considered “under employed” in the sense that their education, experience, and abilities are well underpaid and/or the individual is in a position well below their capabilities. The average individual American is about $30,000 dollars in debt with 3 to 9% interest rates.
You don’t have to be an economist to see that this is an awfully tall tower built on a very shaky foundation.
You do, however, have to be an economist to reassure people that in basic economics there is an inevitable ebb and flow. Specifically, what this means is–what goes up must go down. The economy can’t always be on top. There will always be war, famine, and in recent cases worldwide pandemics. That’s just life.
But here’s what troubling: our “bounce back” after the 2007 recession wasn’t really a bounce back at all. It was just barely keeping our heads above water.
After the crash, nobody got their savings back, less than 5% of the people who should have been arrested for screwing the system actually did any time, and the taxpayer footed the bill for some hotshots to play Russian roulette with other people’s money.
In the meantime, student tuition increased by over 37% due to gluttonous price gouging from swindlers in higher education with a bloated sense of self importance that sold a product that has been decreasing in quality as quickly as it has been increasing in price.
But you’re still going to buy that product because the market is over saturated and now you can’t even get a secretary gig without a degree.
Fuck me, right?
This is the game now.
For years we’ve seen inflation go steadily upward (as it does), but with salaries remaining stagnant. According to Fortune Magazine (2021), salaries were supposed to increase by 4.8%…until inflation is taken into account. Then, economist realized that pay actually went down by 1.9%.
So salaries are actually down when you take inflation into account–which is climbing rapidly these past few months and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. The majority of the population are in debt they can’t escape, in a system that was designed to fail either out of incompetence of negligence.
Lastly, the educational system does not even remotely align with the needs of the job market; Even the majors that are needed (STEAM) aren’t up to par to the standards of the employers due to the rapidly declining quality of the American public educational system that does not even remotely prepare the student for the real world, let alone ambitious employment.
All of this–every single Chicken Little, sky is falling example I just gave doesn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things if it weren’t for just one thing–nothing is being done about it.
This, by far, is the biggest concern. Every cause has an effect, and right now we are reaping what others more powerful than us have sown. This is nothing new in any economy.
Believe it or not, but we’ve had worse economic times in this country, let along in other countries who have known more famine and desperation than the US has even known.
But any situation, any festering bacteria hiding under your sink, can grow and putrefy like the disease it is if it goes unchecked. Thus far, the powers that be seem to be debating on how best to tackle the ever mounting explosion of problems by accusing the other side of starting the problems rather than on anyone focusing on how to solve them before this becomes a powder keg ready to blow.
So how best to break down this multilayered problem that all have the end result of economic depression that creates a domino effect that spreads worldwide?
For starters the student debt issue has to be dealt with. Yes, it’s going to piss off a lot of short-sighted naysayers, but those naysayers need to be reminded that their hard earned money went to bailing out dishonest banks who were gorging themselves on the money of the working man while vomiting out nothing in return and not a damn thing was truly done about it. Where was their outrage then?
The nice thing is, taxpayer money doesn’t have to bail out student debt at all. Politicians from Bernie Sanders to Andrew Yang have all come up with ideas from cutting funding to taxing wall street transactions. Even if you hate both those ideas, many more have been coming out of the woodwork to come up with their own ideas to blow out student debt without John Everyman having to pay for institution’s mistakes.
And that’s what naysayers get wrong. They think the individual is responsible for their own debt without realizing the deck was stacked against them to begin with through dishonesty and corruption–like 2008 all over again. But instead of houses, it’s the American educational system.
It’s too big to fail.
Right?
Secondly, the educational system has to be ripped apart and redone completely. Every American kid has complained that they have no idea how to pay taxes, what credit is, or how to sew a freaking button back onto their shirt by the time they are shoved out of high school. How in the hell do we expect teenagers to sign on the dotted line that they’re going to be in five figure, sometimes six figure debt with crippling interest rates when they can’t even locate France on a map?
So stupid, it almost sounds intentionally designed doesn’t it?
Personally, I’m of the belief that if a kid can’t locate Brazil on a map, doesn’t know who George Washington is, and can’t tell me the title of at least one Shakespeare play, they can’t get a high school diploma until they can.
In order to make this happen, we need to pay teachers enough that they don’t need food stamps or a second job; And they shouldn’t have to pay for their own supplies too. Some people will complain that teachers don’t deserve a raise because of how stupid so many kids came out when they left the system, but common sense should tell you that you get what you pay for. If you pay bullshit, you get bullshit.
Third, minimum wage needs to be raised across the board. I once had a conversation with a neighbor of mine who scoffed at the idea of minimum wage being raised to $15 dollars an hour because he was working as an EMT. He made $15 an hour. His point was that someone with the skill of flipping burgers shouldn’t make the same as someone who saves lives. I responded by asking him why someone with the skill to save lives was making $15 an hour in the first place. That’s food stamp wage. Wasn’t he worth more than that?
He didn’t have a response to this.
If minimum wage isn’t raised, then there won’t be any fire under the asses of other employers who have been coming up with any and every excuse in the book to not pay their employees decent, middle class salaries.
Before anyone breathes the word inflation, I’d like to remind the reader that as you’re reading this, inflation isn’t just crawling up now, it’s leaping–with or without your salary going up.
Lastly, I would say we need to remove the bureaucracy of the modern day hiring process. Anyone who has applied for a job within the past ten years knows that the application process is inefficient at best, and delusional at its worst.
Specifically, employers don’t seem to know what entry level means. It generally means 0-3 years of experience. A shocking amount of jobs in any given field ask for five years or more experience for entry level work and subsequent entry level salaries, contributing to the overwhelming numbers of “underemployed” Americans.
Not to mention the process of looking for candidates is often automated, contributing to the best candidates going in the dumpster because they didn’t have the right “keyword”.
The US is woefully behind the rest of the developed world in paid time off, resulting in severe mental health issues and now glaringly noticeable mass exodus from the workforce overall leading to out-of-touch employers to scratch their heads wondering where they could have gone wrong.
Something has to give. Something has to change.
If it doesn’t–we know the end result.
“Bad Women” and the men who can’t stop thinking about them
I remember at work a few years ago, I was in the lab with three male colleagues. They were talking about how to “test” a woman to see if she was girlfriend material. The tests seemed to consist of what duties she was willing to do to and for each guy in question. They each agreed that these tests should be administered early on in dating–you know, when the couple doesn’t know each other that well.
I interjected by asking what “tests” a girl should give a guy to see if he was boyfriend material.
Unsurprisingly, this was met with dead silence and blank stares.
It never occurred to any of these guys (all of whom had never been in a long term relationship) that: a) “testing” may not be the strongest foundation of a relationship, and b) that expectations may be mutual.
Sadly, this narrative has been going on for a while now. With every action comes and equal and opposite reaction.
Recently, feminist have become more vocal in addressing topics in sexism that have not been addressed–or at least not as publicly–that have caused an equally vocal response of men within certain groups that will often tout their beliefs (typically in the comments section of various websites) that women consist of: whores, golddiggers, and servants. Nothing more.
Although it should be noted that many of these men within this belief system will often exclude their wives, mothers, and sisters because “they’re different”.
What’s interesting about this movement of a minority of men who complain about the “modern” woman is that they unknowingly seem to embody everything they claim to hate about the opposite sex.
I’ll break down a few “disgusting career-girl” stereotypes about the modern woman that are often the documented ad nauseam online for these types of guys:
- They’re fat and don’t take pride in their appearance.
- They’re reactionary and very emotional.
- They’re very politically involved.
- They’re too interested in a guy’s appearance (aka they’re “shallow”).
- They have active sex lives.
- They stay single for too long.
- They’re too picky about the opposite sex.
As I mentioned earlier, my aforementioned colleagues were all single and vocally unhappy about it. Similarly online, this also seems to be a running theme with the anti-feminist groups. Often these men are older, have never been in a long term relationship, and are childless.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t speak ill of one’s character by itself, but when this is a common talking point of why you distrust the opposite sex, as you can image it can come across as a little hypocritical.
Secondly, we have the appearance aspect. Obesity is definitely a problem in the US, sure. But again, we come to a hypocrisy issue when many of the men lamenting the decline in slimmer women are often large themselves. This isn’t an isolated case by the way; I know at least a dozen guys who have proudly claimed that they would never talk to a girl in public if she wasn’t pretty enough for him, let alone date her, while simultaneously complaining that pretty women were shallow because they only date “attractive guys”.
Conveniently, these guys will often suggest that the attractive guy is a jerk (despite not knowing the other man personally), further pushing his personal belief that women are shallow.
Additionally, pseudoscience will often be brought up by the same guy who wasn’t interested in talking to a girl he deemed “physically unworthy” of him, but be angry that the girl in question would probably be interested in a more attractive guy by stating that “science” says men should pick women based only on their appearance while women pick men based on their status or personal wealth.
…Which again, can be quite confusing to a third party since the type of guy with this belief system is the same type of guy who foams at the mouth with rage over the women who do seem to value a man’s status and wealth, aka “golddiggers”. Simultaneously, they will also romanticize homemakers, and wish women would go back to expecting men to be the sole providers.
Confused yet?
Well, as someone in STEM, I certainly was.
You see, it is true that men tend to be more visual than women. However, it should be noted that biology doesn’t match up with society on this one.
Specifically, for many centuries, men in power have selected the prettiest women as mates which perpetuated the theory that men only want beauty and women only want status. The problem with this theory is that the women in this situation never consented, let alone wanted, to be in these relationships.
Fun fact: The purpose of groomsman in weddings was to make sure the bride didn’t run away, as attempting to escape (or attempt suicide) in her arranged marriage to an older man was very common.
Kind of blows the whole “women only want status because they chose to marry powerful, old village-lords” theory to smithereens, huh?
Of course guys picked pretty wives back in the day. If women had that option, they’d pick their own version of a “dreamboat” as well, wouldn’t they?
The old theories that never took women’s perspectives into account naturally don’t match up with modern biology where there is the “matching hypothesis” study that states that people, left to their own devices, without the influence of money or culture, tend to select mates of about equal attractiveness.
Multiple studies ranging from UCLA to Aberdeen University since the 1960’s have found that people of the same attractiveness and health often tend to seek each other out romantically–even sight unseen. These same studies have the same results just using pheromone samples of the opposite sex.
These biological studies isolate the biological desires from societal pressures and culture in the subjects in these blind studies, so this changes the outcome from what you might see in everyday life.
Of course, any attempt to explain that women have desires like men do, and that most men have depth of character where they find other qualities in a girl (besides her appearance) attractive, usually just get dismissed by his self-made theory that other men are just “simps”, “cucks”, “betas”, or whatever other slang term that emerged from Reddit.
This usually leads the anti-feminist guys to get very emotional responses towards women who don’t wish to marry, have children later in life, or who change their appearance in ways these types of guys may deem “unsuitable”. Despite the fact that many of these guys don’t know these women personally, they tend to get extremely emotionally involved in how strangers live their lives. Often this results in having extreme political believes in an attempt to forcibly create more uniformity in the society around them. Specifically, having political and social beliefs that there should be more control over women and sexuality within a society as a whole (Oddly, there seems to be a lot of homophobia towards gay men in these circles).
Overall, I’m sure one can see a running theme in these types of strongly anti-feminist men who expect: women to only value men for their status and not appearance because–science, not value men for their status because–golddiggers, be homemakers with no job, not depend on a man financially, be attractive but not attractive enough that other men notice you, and not be picky because only men should be picky (despite the science that says women are picker because they reproduce less quickly).
As it’s plain to see, not only is there a noticable hypocracy, but there is also a suprising lack of self-awareness involving how simialry these types of guys live their lives like the very women they claim to hate.
The difference is that these fellas will obsess about the women who don’t live the way these guys see fit, yet the women of their focus never seem to think about these men… except when they pop up in the comments section online blasting slurs.
Like in life, these unhappy guys don’t seem to realize their words get deleted–and quickly forgotten–by the villainous “career-girls” living their lives.
On both the internet and in life we find the angry woman-hater who spends copious time trying to get the girl’s attention, trying to get her to like him, trying to figure her out…only to have the woman not notice him and go about her day, furthers his frustration by his own lack of self-reflection.
And everything he perceives in her–he hates in himself.
A Rumble of Gargoyles
“A Ruin of Gargoyles? Seems fitting doesn’t it? I mean you never see them look new, do you?
Or a Grumble of Gargoyles? That’s how they talk from what I remember”.
A petit old woman in a lime green house dress gazed out of her kitchen window. Fat droplets of rain pelted down and surrounded the small home with audible rhythmic tapping sounds.
Alan sat at the kitchen table and smiled across the room at the woman. “You could combine the two and call them a ‘Rumble of Gargoyles”.
The older woman smiled, fine lines appearing in the corners of her eyes and mouth. She turned back around to the kitchen counter and collected two mugs full of hot chocolate. She shuffled slowly towards the kitchen table, clearly taking each step with great care.
Alan noticed it seemed harder for her to walk more than usual.
The woman set one cup in front of Alan then shuffled to the chair to his left and sat down.
“A Rumble. A Rumble of my Gargoyles,” the woman nodded matter-of-factly, “Yes, that suits them surprisingly well.”
Alan sipped the hot chocolate. “Hey mom, why did Nana and Grandpa use to freak out when you’d mention the Gargoyles?”
He old woman wrapped both hands around her mug. She was pensive for a moment before she took a deep breath.
“Well, there were a few reasons. In fairness, I don’t know very many parents that would be thrilled with the idea of their little girl claiming to hear voices and other things like that beyond the normal age of imaginary friendships.”
“Other things?” Alan inquired.
The older woman nodded and took a sip of her hot chocolate. “Mmhmm. You remember me talking about the house I grew up in.”
“Well, yeah, but you never went into detail.”
The old woman looked up from her mug and glanced at her son. He was staring intently at her, clearly not interested in letting the topic drop.
She took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair until it creaked. “Oh, very well. But you’re going to think I’m insane.”
“Way ahead of you, mom.”
The woman smacked Alan’s upper arm. “Oh hush.”
She stared down at the table and furrowed her brows in concentration. “I think I was about eleven. My father had just bought an old manor home in the countryside for a steal after he got a new job in Rhode Island.
It was beautiful: Originally built in the 1830s or so, it was renovated in the 1920s complete with stained glass windows, a clawfoot bathtub, and a wrought iron staircase that spiraled upward in the library.
I remember feeling a bit intimidated when I first stepped into the home. It was very daunting to be in such a grand home compared to our old brick one-bedroom in the city. The darn thing reminded me of a cave—no matter how many windows there were, the home just seemed…well…dark.
Mother told me to go upstairs and open up all the windows to let a little fresh air in while she and pa moved some of the boxes in.
I remember going to the top of the stairs and pausing to look back down and get a better view of the first floor. It was then I started hearing a…well…I guess you could call it a shuffling. There was an attic door directly above me at the top of the stairs and it sounded like someone was moving stones. Large stones.
As I looked up and reached for the cord to pull down the attic door, I heard mother chastising me for dawdling from downstairs, so I dropped it and ran to a closed door at the end of the hall.
When I threw open the old, wood door I was stunned to find…well, I couldn’t very well call it an office—it looked more like a cross between a laboratory and a church I suppose.
Jars of every shape and size filled with all sorts of things I couldn’t identify occupied almost every surface. And there was a drawing, a painting of some kind in ink smeared all over the wall opposite the windows. It was a gruesome depiction of some kind of monster.
There were papers scattered everywhere: all over the desk, the floor, sliding of the bookshelves; It was a if whoever used that office left in quite the hurry. Many of the books on the shelves were made of very old binding and were falling apart at the seams. Those books can be pretty valuable, so I thought at the time whoever lived here must have been run out of town!
The room spooked me, so just as I was about to turn around and leave, I looked down and spotted…well, I can’t call them foot prints. They were prints of a certain kind, but I don’t know of any animal–let alone person–that could have made those prints. The prints looked like they were from the smeared ink on the wall, but I couldn’t tell where the prints started or stopped.
I heard mother calling for me and asking me if I was alright. I couldn’t move from my spot. I suppose I was just so stunned at what I had found. I called up for her and told her there was something she needed to see.
Immediately, I heard a thundering from the stairs that told me that both her and pa were running up in a big hurry. When they came up behind me, I heard my mother gasp.
For a moment, they didn’t say anything, but after a while pa ushered us out of the room and shut the door behind us.
He said he would clean out that room later on his own and for us not to worry about it.”
Alan scoffed, “Did granddad really just brush it off like finding a weird room wasn’t something to look into? I mean you guys just bought that house; wouldn’t he have questions?!”
The old woman took another sip of hot chocolate. “Well, that’s what I wondered at the time. I knew something was wrong when I heard your grandparents arguing after I went to bed. Their room was just next to mine. There were plenty of rooms in that house, but in retrospect I think my parents wanted to be close to me with what they knew.”
Alan shifted in his seat. “What do you mean? What did they know?”
“Well, I remember hearing mother being terribly upset. She asked pa why he didn’t tell her something and he responded by saying he didn’t want to worry her over some silly old-wives tale and he needed to save money to buy the cheapest home he could in the area since finances were tight. From what I could gather, the home was cheap because it was thought to be cursed.”
Alan furrowed his brows but his mother continued.
“Apparently, the previous owner had lived in that home for generations. The home was used as a funeral home and the men in the family all worked as morticians.
The story is that the son went a little mad after the sudden death of his parents. The business and home were left to him. He became more reclusive and stopped going to church. He spent many nights alone in the woods. Many of the neighbors claimed they would see other things in the woods with him which started stories that he was dabbling in things he ought not to. I think that’s where the local legend came from; that the house was cursed for the son’s sins.”
“Wait, what do you mean things?” Alan asked.
The old woman was gazing out the sliding glass doors across the table to watch the rain coming down. “Hmm?”
Alan clarified, “You said ‘people saw him in the woods with things and that got people talking about his sins’, or something.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I don’t really know myself. That was never clear to me either. I just know that the children in the neighborhood avoided me like the plague and said nothing good ever came out of the ‘bad house’.”
Alan leaned forward in his chair until it creaked. “What exactly did this guy do that got everybody talking? And how does that tie into, like, grandad’s and nana’s Gargoyle phobia?”
“Well, you need to let me finish don’t you?”
Alan smiled, “Sorry mom.”
The woman cleared her throat, “Anyway, the days went on and I kept hearing shuffling up in the attic. I waited until pa was at work and mother went to the market so I could climb up there and see what the sound was.
When I climbed up there I remember gasping out loud because there were these large stone statues, about four of them, all looking like monsters. They were lined up in a row, all with their backs facing the attic window.
At first, I nearly jumped out of my skin and ran back down, but then I recognized their impish faces: They were Gargoyles.
I had seen them in pictures of Paris, Rome, and other such cities, but they were always on top of buildings—not in them.
I turned around to look at the rest of the attic to see if there was anything else that could be causing such noise, but the second I took my eyes off them…it was like a switch went off. Suddenly I hear a rush of whispers that seemed to crescendo like a hurricane. Then that scrapping sound; that awful, low scrapping sound of stone. It all happened so fast, I whipped around and the sound cut off the moment I looked back at them.
I could sense something was off. I took a step closer to get a better look, and it wasn’t until I looked at the one at the end, the one that was in a crouching position before, that I stopped dead in my tracks and forgot to breathe.
The one at the end was no longer in a crouched position. He was now in a squatting position with his forearms resting on his knees.
I could feel the blood in my veins turn ice cold. As I scanned the others, I could see they were all in different positions from when I first glanced at them.
I was starting to feel lightheaded, but then I could hear your grandmother coming back in and setting the groceries in the kitchen. That snapped me back into reality and I thought about calling for her.
But then…and I couldn’t to this day tell you if it was my wooziness, or maybe a trick of the light, but as I made eye contact with one of the Gargoyles—he smiled.
Well, I ran out of there so quickly, I nearly fell down the attic latter.
I didn’t want mother to think I was a baby afraid of a few statues, so I didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t until the next few days that other strange things started happening: objects disappearing, food going bad after a few hours after bringing them home, the cat disappearing, and that constant grumbling from the attic. I know mother heard it. She was the one who told me to never tell anyone so they wouldn’t think I was crazy. I’m not sure about pa though; He would never discuss things like that.
Although, he never did go in that office and clean it up like he said. I think it scared him a little.
Anyway, I went up to that attic a few times.
The first few times were much the same: low whispers and grumblings, just not when you looked at them.
However, there was a sort of…build up.
One time I went up and the whispering didn’t stop when I looked at the Gargoyles. It was like their mouths were still moving, but they weren’t. I mean they were stone, so they didn’t move, but it was like…like a projector reflecting on the mouths of the Gargoyles where the shadows on their lips looked like they were moving. It kept getting louder, so I ran down again.”
Alan was still. “What were they saying?”
She shrugged, “Hard to say. The whispering was to jumbled and fast I couldn’t make it out. Until the last day that is.”
“What last day?” Alan asked.
“The day before the last time I went up there, the ‘build up’…I could see them moving again. It was very slow, but intentional. They were slowly moving to a standing position while I was still looking at them. They were getting more bold.
Seeing them talk is one thing, but seeing them brazenly move while you’re still looking at them is threatening.
After that time, I swore to myself I would never go up there again.
A few days went by and the whispering only got louder. It seemed only I could hear it, or at least mother and pa pretended not to hear anything. They avoided going upstairs as much as possible.
One night, it was coming down like today and I kept seeing flickers of shadows out of my bedroom window from my peripheral vison. I could never get a good look at whatever it was. Every time I looked out the window, I just saw the edge of a shadow flickering away. And little tappings. It was like someone kept tapping on my window to keep me awake.
I knew who it was.
And I knew what I had to do.
I went out into the hallway and pulled down the cord to the attic and climbed up. I felt my heart flutter into my throat went I pushed open the attic door. All four of the statues were no longer lined up along one wall. They formed a semi-circle around the entrance of the attic. I knew it wasn’t your granddad or nana that could’ve done it—or would have done it.
No, this time was going to be different. I stood frozen on the stairs to the attic. The only reason I climbed all the way up is because a sudden rattling was shaking the latter below me as if someone was grabbing the latter on the ground and shaking it vigorously.
When I climbed all the way up and the door shut below me, there was a moment of silence before I heard them.
And they weren’t whispering anymore. I heard one voice at first. I couldn’t tell which one it was coming from. But it was a nasal voice.
“Mom?” Alan placed a hand on his mother’s arm. She had been staring out the window absent mindedly.
“Mom? What did it say to you?”
The old woman adjusted the collar of her dress. “I honestly couldn’t tell you ver batum. I just remember the overall message: take us out of the attic and leave us outside and all the problems will go away.”
Alan slid his arm away from his mother and back towards himself. “And then you did.”
She nodded. “Oh yes. Well, I didn’t specifically, I told pa a little of what happened. Obviously I glossed over some of the more sensational parts of the story, but overall I told your grandfather that the Gargoyles scarred me and needed to be moved into the backyard facing the woods.
He obliged of course. Truth be told, I think he was a little relieved to have them out of the house.
Sure enough, after the Gargoyles were moved, we didn’t have anymore disturbances in the house.”
“So why the hell did you keep the Gargoyles through all these years?” Alan gestured at the sliding glass window that faced the front lawn at a large stone Gargoyle perched by a small rose garden, facing across the street. “I mean, you never let us touch those things when we were kids. I just thought they were expensive or something.”
The woman placed a spoon in her hot chocolate and slowly twirled it inside the cup. “Well, I couldn’t in good conscious leave them to anyone else. Nasty tricks stopped happening in our home once they were moved outside, but I can’t say the same for our neighbors over the years. I wasn’t sure what would happen if they fell into the hands of another family. Guilt wouldn’t allow me to take the risk.”
Alan tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean nasty things started happening to the neighbors when you moved them outside?”
“Well, all the creepy things stopped happening within the house when pa moved the Gargoyles, but we would get the neighbors mentioning offhandedly telling my parents that some of their animals would disappear or they would…see things at night.
We never saw anything though. Pa made sure of that. He became very insistent that your grandmother and I went to bed early, even on the days with no school. Mother said he was just worried about the family’s health, but when I would peer out my window into the back yard night after night and never see them on the property, but they’d be there in the morning when I woke up, I knew why.”
Alan smirked and buried his head in his hands. “Mom, why the hell didn’t you tell me this story before?”
His mother tiled her head to the side, “And scare the bejesus out of you as a boy? I think not.”
Alan stood and stretched. “I’ve gotta say mom, that’s one of your best stories yet. I’ve got to head out and meet Diane for dinner, but I’m glad I got to catch up with you.”
He leaned down and wrapped his arms around his mother in a hug.
“Love you, mom.”
She hugged him back. “Love you too.”
Alan started towards the sliding glass door and pulled it open. Before he stepped out he paused for a moment. “Hey mom?”
She looked up, “Mmhmm?”
He looked back at his mother; her small frame and both her gnarled, withered hands wrapped around her mug. “You’re just telling stories, right? I mean, you don’t believe this stuff, right?”
She nodded. “Oh sure son. You know, I was just a little girl at the time. I think I was just nervous being in that big old house is all.”
He nodded and patted the wall of the kitchen. “Yeah, just checking. Well, love you and see you soon.”
She took a sip of hot chocolate. “Bye dear”.
She watched her son slide the door closed behind him and walk across the lawn towards his car parked out on the street.
She was always sure to watch him when he walked past the Gargoyle. Any of the Gargoyles really. Nothing had happened to her children before. Not when they were placed outside.
Alan got in the car and started the engine. As the car started to drive, he peered into his side view mirror to catch a glimpse of his mother in the kitchen.
She was still sitting there, drinking her hot chocolate. He breathed a sigh of relief. She was still going strong, but it was stories like that that made him a little worried about the state of her mind as she got older.
Before Alan looked back to the road and drove out of the street, he stepped on the break and the car gave out a squeak.
He did a double take in the side view mirror before he turned around all the way in his seat.
The Gargoyle by the rose bush in his mother’s front lawn was facing him dead on.
It looked like it had rotated to face the back of his car as he drove away.
Alan squinted. It was facing forward out across the street before he took off wasn’t it?
Alan shook his head and continued to drive off. He was just imagining things after his mom’s story.
Still, Alan didn’t look back into the rear view mirror until he had left his mother’s street.
“What is love? Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me…no more.” And other reasons why the main guy doesn’t always get the girl.
I’ve seen Phantom of the Opera 1,234,256,654 times. I love it. The play, the movie, the book (yes, there’s a book you uncultured swine!), I love it all.
Frequently, I would hear people claim that the Phantom should end up with Christine, the female protagonist.
To which I would loudly bellow, “NOOOOOOO! Have you not seen the play?! He straight up kills people! And grooms an eight year old! And shatters perfectly good chandeliers!”
After slowly moving away from me before I could point out he was also a bad horse owner, I realized why so many people were rooting for the Phantom. Despite being a sociopath, it was expected he would be with Christine….the male lead is supposed to get the girl. Right?
Even if he’s a jerk like Han Solo.
Or disfigured and crazy like the Phantom.
Or just straight up murders people like Dracula.
We’re so used to assuming the woman of the story is indebted to the male lead that we never question if it’s a wise–or even a safe choice for the female lead.
Fortunately, Christine says her piece in a nutshell: “This haunted face hold no horror for me now. It’s in your soul that the true distortion lies”.
The Phantom doesn’t get the girl at the end not because he is physically disfigured, but because he has chosen to allow himself to become emotionally disfigured.
Despite being somewhat a product of his society, the Phantom still has autonomy. And kidnapping, murder, and attempted murder of you crush’s boyfriend because “He’s a douche! And a Chad! You should sing with me because I’M nOt LiKe tHe OthEr GuYs!”, is awful and he didn’t have to do any of that.
He didn’t deserve the girl at the end. And even if he didn’t commit crimes like it was the Purge, he still wouldn’t get the girl at the end because the girl has more in common with her childhood friend Roul.
However, it should be noted that even though the Phantom did not get Christine, he did get something valuable for all of his efforts–the knowledge that someone cares about him. The ending kiss between Christine and Phantom (although under duress) is a platonic kiss, a kiss of compassion.
Turns out that’s all he needed to show a little humanity–and therefore redemption.
Similarly, there is another tale of a disfigured young man who walks alone:
(For reference I will only be talking about the Disney movie, not the novel).
*Ahem*
Shortly after the debut of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, there was a small but vocal outcry of people who thought the ending was unfair to the protagonist, Quasimodo.
Spoiler alert! At the end of Hunchback, Quasi doesn’t get the girl; The handsome, sword-wielding soldier Phoebus does.
Why?
Because unlike the typical Disney formula of the main characters getting their happily ever after, Quasi gets a more realistic ending.
Yeah, the super-hot-inexplicably-martial-arts-knowing-heroine surprisingly doesn’t end up with the mentally tortured recluse with physical deformities. She ends up with an equally attractive guy.
Not the traditionally happy ending we as an audience expect.
But that’s also a surprisingly good message for young boys.
Now before anyone jumps down my throat with “WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER! SHALLOW! BUUUURN HER!”… hear me out.
The message isn’t “hey, you’re not a good looking guy so have low standards in life”.
No.
Hell no.
I wouldn’t give that message to boys or girls.
But I would point out that Quasi not getting the girl at the end yet still finding his own happily ever after is a much needed message for people; particularly in today’s day and age of ass-fillers, snapchat filters, and swiping left on people who “just aren’t enough for you”.
We have more beauty enhancement devices for both genders than ever before, yet we hate ourselves despite the fact that pretty much everyone in this century would look like Adonises compared to pre-indoor plumbing days.
But for Quasi, his happy ending, his growth as a person, and his acceptance as a man doesn’t come from the traditional story arch of “getting the girl”.
You know, as if she’s a robot who automatically is attracted to the highest bidder, or that he has to fight other men to prove his worth to the most attractive woman in the room.
No, he becomes a man when he sees his own self worth through questioning his beliefs, listening to others, learning to stand up for himself, and standing by his friends.
His manhood isn’t determined by “getting the gal”. It’s determined through the more realistic–and more healthy–message of the importance of getting out of one’s comfort zone to achieve self-discovery.
Quasi slowly gains more confidence in himself not by gaining lustful validation from an “oh so frail, oh so grateful damsel in distress”, but taking small steps outside his home and shelter.
After being humiliated in his attempt to step out of his home, he still tries again by taking the captive Esmeralda to the roof of the cathedral and down the back way to help her escape. He learns to trust his new friend Phoebus by setting aside their petty differences and ends up in a rescue mission trudging through the catacombs of Paris; something he would have never dreamt of if his loyalty towards the people who were kind to him didn’t give him the courage to push himself further and further out of his comfort zone.
It was courage and compassion that made Quasimodo the real man in the tale, not lust and entitlement.
Incidentally, lust and entitlement were exactly the motivators for our tale’s villain, Frollo. His money, power, and aggressiveness don’t get him the girl.
Mostly because none of that compensates for the fact that he’s an asshole.
This is the ending; The ending that doesn’t result in hero=hot girl prize. It’s a more realistic message to it’s audience by defining the hero’s journey as something internal. It’s not riches, not power, not even a cure for loneliness that defines everyone’s happy ending–but an internal struggle of growing into a better person.
Top 10 Legends of New Orleans
This city has always had a special place in my heart.
Mostly because they have the best horror stories.
Amazingly, some of these legends such as Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie are true tales. So here is a brief top 10 list of the creepiest (and therefore best!) New Orleans tales.
10. Marie Laveau
A Creole practitioner of Voodoo and a well known midwife, Laveau was sought after in the city as a wise woman who could change people’s lives through the power of herbal remedies, spells, and classic Voodoo elements. A respected member of the community, Laveau’s grave is an iconic tourist site where visitors will mark her grave with an “X” or offer gifts to get their wish granted.
9. Madame LaLaurie
A serial killer that would make Ted Bundy blush, LaLaurie’s name is still met with fear even today as her name is associated with a “carnival of torture”.
LaLaurie was a well known socialite who threw the most extravagant parties in 19th century New Orleans society. Unsuspecting to her guests, LaLaurie held her slaves in the attic, away from prying eyes, where she would torture them in ways that were considered brutal treatment even by 19th century standards. Her tortures ranged from putting feces in the mouth of one slave and sowing his mouth shut, to breaking the limbs of another slave and trapping her in a box so her limbs would move “as a crab”. One slave chained to a stove finally revealed LaLaurie’s awful secret by intentionally burning down the house. As neighbors set out the flames, the attic of torture was discovered, and the city of New Orleans was horrified at the gore they witnessed.
The LaLaurie’s were disgraced and even tracked down to be hanged for their crimes. Rumor has it LaLaurie managed to escape back to France, while others claimed she moved further upstate. Either way, LaLaurie’s ghost is rumored to haunt the manor home that still sits in the French Quarter to this day. I’m not positive about a lot of things in life–but this broad is definitely in hell.
8. The Sultan’s Palace
An old home sits in the French Quarter where legend says a Sultan once lived. This Sultan purchased a home on Dauphine street and paraded around silks, jewels, and a band of women and eunuchs for the community to gawk at. Shortly after moving in, the Sultan held lavish parties that were the envy of high society. However, these series of parties came to a swift end.
Months after moving in, a man walking down the street found blood oozing out of the front door of the Sultan’s Palace. The man ran to the police station and brought with him numerous officers who couldn’t believe their eyes: the rotting dead lay scattered around the interior of the manor home.
The police marveled at the carnage of a never ending scene of the dead, all brutally murdered, lay in massive pools of blood. As the officers moved their way round the home and into the garden, they observed a single hand sticking out of the dirt. Upon digging, the officer’s discovered most of the rest of the Sultan himself–clearly buried alive. This is one of many versions of the story of the murdered Sultan. The one consistency of the story is that no one knows who killed the Sultan or his band.
7. The Ursuline “Vampires”
In the French Quarter there is a convent for Ursuline nuns. Now at the founding of New Orleans, the city was being build primarily by men. This caused a logistical problem as you can’t create and colonize a society without making more people. No women=no more people.
To solve this issue, the King of France offered poor young women of France an opportunity to get themselves out of poverty by marrying the men trading and farming the land. However, at this time, women did not live alone. They had to live with family or with other women and a “mother hen” type of guardian to protect their reputation. To ensure these girls would be safe, the King offered the women to stay with the nuns in the convent until they found husbands.
The girls came single file into the convent, but with added luggage that raised eyebrows. The girls brought with them large, wooden coffins. One by one, each girl carried with her a large coffin. This earned the girls the title “casket girls”. Rumors spread quickly that these girls must be vampires as the death toll skyrocketed the moment the girls moved in (although it should be noted the Yellow Fever epidemic was happening at the same time). Many of these girls did get married and have children of their own, but rumor continued to spread that these girls were vampires.
Rumor that has never left the city of New Orleans as to this day people living near the Ursuline convent claim to see figures floating out of the attic of the convent.
6. The Rougarou
Okay, so this technically isn’t inside New Orleans, but it is just on the outskirts of the city within the nearby swampland. In the swamp, the local Cajun community have their own tales of the Rougarou, or the “wolfman”. Essentially a warewolf tale, the Rougarou staking the swampland has predated the French colonists and been spoken about in whispers by the Native Americans who occupied the land beforehand; Tales of a shapeshifter who waited in the dark to attack anyone wandering the swamp alone at night.
5. The Carter brothers
Two brothers worked the docks late at night and slept during the day. Not unusual for men who worked in the shipyard. What was unusual however was the day that a young girl drenched in blood ran straight to the police station screaming that she had been kidnapped by the brothers.
She claimed there were many others trapped in their apartment and all of them were being cut repeatedly so the brothers could drink their victim’s blood. The police stormed into the brother’s apartment with a mob, prepared to see anything. What they saw matched the girl’s description: half-dead, weak kidnapped victims tied down with numerous cuts all over their bodies.
However, what the police were not expecting were the inexplicable strength of the brothers when they fought off over thirty people who were trying to arrest them. One officer described the young men as “throwing the mob around like ragdolls”. Eventually, the men were subdued and executed for their crimes. Years later, after grave robbers broke into the brother’s tomb, the police discovered that the tomb was empty. No bodies were ever recovered.
4. Jaques St. Germaine
This name may sound familiar as he has been a part of legend all over the world. Seen as a socialite and forward-thinker for his time, St. Germaine traveled Europe studying philosophy, chemistry, art, and strangely enough, alchemy. St. Germaine had a fascination with immortality. A fascination that some say led him to a successful discovery.
St. Germaine made his way to New Orleans where he wowed the crowd by his extensive knowledge of history and languages. He would throw incredible parties that would be the envy of Gadsby. He also had a love for the ladies of New Orleans. One day, St. Germaine brought a young woman back to his home where she marveled at his elegant furniture and possessions.
According to legend, she laid her head down on a slab of marble when St. Germaine suddenly lost his cool and bit down on the girl’s neck. Terrified, the girl broke free and ran to the second story balcony of his home where she jumped–then died. A crowd gathered to see the girl bleeding on the cobblestones and called out for the authorities patrolling nearby. St. Germaine managed to flee his home through the commotion before officer’s arrived. After they did arrive to the scene, officer’s discovered a wine cellar full of a sludge caked to the interior of the bottles.
To their horror, they realized the bottles were full of not wine, but blood.
3. The Grunch
Again, I may be cheating as this is technically outside of the city in the swampland, but still. The Grunch is not too dissimilar from Greek mythology’s satyr in the sense that it is part man, part goat. And homicidal. Many an unlucky wanderer in Louisiana claim that they have encountered this murderous hybrid and nearly made it out with their lives as the creature apparently likes to charge at unsuspecting strangers.
2. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar
One of the oldest bars in the country, of course it’s supposedly haunted. Specifically it is allegedly haunted by pirates. One of the founders of the city, the French pirate Jean Lafitte, created this bar to not only profit from the builders and traders that needed a break, but to help hide his various illegal activities. To this day, staff often report seeing various men in 18th century clothing loitering in dark corners of the bar only to disappear out of thin air.
1. The Axe-Man. Another serial killer from 1918 to 1919, the axeman was allegedly such a lover of jazz that he said he would spare the lives of any household that blasted the music. Many people played jazz at night to be spared from the axeman’s murderous crusade. To this day, no one is really sure who the axeman was….or why he drew the line at murdering by one’s music taste.
I have yet to go on a ghost tour that is as enthralling as the ones in New Orleans; and rest assured I make it a mission to go on ghost tours in every city I visit.
Unlike the restless damned, I hope you rest well tonight!
“Eat the Rich” and Batman
When you watch Batman, it’s easy to get caught up in the “who is really the hero” narrative that runs through the trilogy. But recently I started re-watching the series due to the quarantine blues, and I couldn’t help but notice the constant financial themes that can’t seem to make up its mind on whether being rich is a good thing or not.
Allow me to explain:
In Batman Begins, we have a typical, spoiled rich boy who lives a life of enormous luxury that isolates him from the rest of the downtrodden, gritty Gotham. The boy suffers hardship in loosing his parents and believes he now understands the plight of the people. A criminal of Gotham, Carmine Falcone, is quick to correct him: “People from your world have so much to lose. No you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you’ve seen the ugly side of life, but you don’t. You’ve never tasted desperate. You’re Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham!”.
He’s right.
Despite losing the ones he loves, he is still way better off than the average citizen of Gotham. It takes years on the streets to see what sacrifice truly is. From this experience, he becomes a better person, a hero, and can better help the people because he immerses himself in the people.
The consistent hero in the story is Rachel Dawes, who despite being a brilliant lawyer, takes a lower salary to help people who need her. She challenges Bruce Wayne’s beliefs, scolds him when he indulges in self pity, and is described by the Scarecrow as “someone who is different; someone who can’t be bought”. She consistently places the value of human lives ahead of earning her money unethically by accepting bribes.
By The Dark Knight, we get to the antagonist the Joker who is first seen robbing a bank from citizens. He continually takes money from others just to burn it down near the climax of the film: “It’s not about money! It’s about sending a message. Everything Burns!”.
The Joker continually steals from the average citizen to establish to the audience that he is the villain, but once he is humanized by given a motive of a more philosophical nature, the audience is meant to see him as more complex and not so much of an antagonist, but rather as a more misguided (albeit demented) person fueled by his own sense of injustice. The burning of the money can be symbolic of destroying the illusion of a simpler, more villainous motive and revealing a motive of far more nuance–because it’s a motive fueled by revealing one’s perception of truth.
Additionally, we have Batman’s conflict of whether or not he is using his money and power for the betterment of humanity, or if he should have all of that power in the first place. Bruce Wayne reveals a technology that would allow him to get a type of sonar view through people’s cell phones. His employee at Wayne Enterprises is horrified and points out this is a clear invasion of privacy and too much power for one person to have. Bruce points out he needs this technology to find the Joker before he kills thousands of people. They come to an agreement to use the technology just once to take down a supreme villain, then destroy it.
This debate within the movie of using expensive technology only available to a small few to spy on average people to take down a larger problem conveniently came out during the Patriot Act in the US when there were direct parallels of the invasion of privacy to reach a larger goal within our on world.
Lastly, in the Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a little more on the nose with his disdain for the elite ruling class and the perceived savagery of the dregs of society who have been left behind: “We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with the myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you, the people of Gotham!The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world we endure!”
Like the Joker, his motivations are more personal.
Sure enough, the people of Gotham start looting now that they have the ok, and Catwoman points out to her younger ward that it is not their money to take in the first place.
So where do these values land on a society that yells “Eat the rich!” on TV, Facebook, and pretty much anywhere else that has a large collection of people under 35?
Like the people of Gotham that are living in a crumbling city that has a very visible gap between the haves and the have-nots, people now have every reason to feel betrayed by the Regan-omics principles that promised the wealthy would provide opportunities and jobs for the poor….only to immediately outsource these jobs for a fraction of the price.
“Eat the Rich” decidedly has a familiar ring to it when only two generations ago, communist party Americans in the 1920’s to the 1950’s were chanting a similar tune. This generation had seen a stock market crash, a depression, and world war. Naturally, they turned to whatever ideology promised to overthrow the system they felt betrayed them.
A familiar sentiment–and anger–felt today.
In Batman, the movies make it clear that although two wrongs don’t make a right (don’t take other people’s belongings or you’re the bad guy), there is a noticeable sympathy for a people that are in desperate need of a hero, or at least the idea of one as well as a scathing look for the wealthy that never branch out of their comfort zone and use their powers for good.
Bruce Wayne didn’t start out as the hero, despite making it clear to the audience that his parents were good people and Bruce himself seemed pleasant enough. Having a good personality wasn’t enough to balance out the enormous wealth he had. Bruce had to work hard not only in his business, but in self-improvement and live and work among the people to fully understand where they needed him (and his wealth) the most. This is when he truly becomes a hero.
One might be thinking, are wealthy people obligated to invest some of their wealth in helping others and tending to the needs of their community?
To put it bluntly, no one is forcing you, so no. You shouldn’t have to be forced to do anything in a free society as Catwoman points out when she realizes that forcibly taking what isn’t yours ins’t the ethical way to restore the balance in an economy.
However, it should be noted that if Bruce Wayne did not use his wealth and resources to help save Gotham, if he never became Batman, he would probably still be the same pleasant fellow. A pleasant fellow who spend billions on new cars, upgrading his home, and dating models. A pleasant fellow who lived safely and never put his life in jeopardy for others. An ideal life for him, but for an outsider looking in, a selfish use of a blessing.
In other words: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.
The Decline of American Infrastructure and why it’s Amazing You’re Not Dead
I was in Middle School in 2005 and I distinctly remember the great tragedy of Hurricane Katrina hitting one of America’s oldest established cities. One of the big talking points was that the category 5 hurricane causing as much damage as it did was of little surprise as New Orleans was built on swamp land below sea level. Not an ideal place to build a city granted, but the levees built around New Orleans were meant to protect the city from rising waters.
Obviously, they failed.
The levees themselves were originally built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The project was then handed to local government to finish the project and for future maintenance. By the time Katrina hit in 2005, the levees were only about 60 to 80% complete. There were six major breaks in the levees during the hurricane which resulted in over a dozen different investigations that found inadequate design by the Corps of Engineers and poor maintenance of the local government.
The American Society of Civil Engineers commented on the post-Katrina disaster by saying: “This was the worst engineering catastrophe in US history”.
So how did this disaster flood out 80% of a historically significant city?
Investigators ranged from FEMA to the University of California-Berkeley that all came to the same conclusion that there were neglegent faults in the design of the levees. Specifically, in the 17th street canal, there was an improper design of the canal floodwalls. Additionally, because New Orleans is a swamp near a gulf, the land has mixed soil. In other words, some areas are founded by sand, while other founded by a more clay-like earth. This earth was calculated into the structural design by the members of the US Corps of Engineers who neglected to calculate all type of earth and their hold in the different locations the levees were being built. This led to a gross miscalculation and overestimation of the strength of more sand or swamp-like earth where certain parts of the levees would be on. “Water filled gaps” allegedly were also not taken into account when designing the levees.
The result of these oversights?
About 1,833 dead Americans.
So why am I talking about this? Why this was ages ago, why talk about the negligence of engineering now in 2020?
Well, because it is still happening. Right under our noses.
While we’re on the topic of New Orleans, did you know that about 59% of streets in the city are ranked in poor condition? Mind you, these are modest estimates.
Or that about 10% of bridges in the US are considered to be structurally deficient according to US news?
Or that 35% of railways are in poor condition according to Govtech?
Or how about that about 30% of the nation’s roads are considered to be of poor quality?
Although the US still ranks in the top 25 percent of countries with the strongest infrastructure (which isn’t really saying a lot comparatively speaking), the US is dragging behind other first world countries due to the aging infrastructure that continuously doesn’t seem to be invested in anymore.
The main reason why money hasn’t been going into infrastructure and public transportation is due to the increasing number of people not using public transport and opting for cars due to a recent economy that allows the average American to afford a car. As a result, over the years engineers have been building younger cities to accommodate cars and not people (contributing to the recent obesity epidemic) and investing less overall on roads, trains, and buses which leads to their overall decline–which creates a vicious cycle of people not wanting to use public transport due to this decline.
Some may argue that this is an inevitable push for a changing world and to let the dice fall where they may. However, it should be pointed out that the lack of investment in infrastructure can not only cost aforementioned lives, but cost the economy overall.
Yes, we spend less money as a government on structural integrity (which puts lives in danger), but we cost taxpayers more money by not investing in public transport or roads. An estimated $160 billion will be wasted on fuel from taxpayers due to crumbling roads according to Business Insider. That’s only the tip of the iceberg on how much money your average taxpayer wastes on unavoidable poor maintenance from a federal level.
And before you add, “Well, that’s other people’s problem! I don’t pay that much in car repair! Why should I have to have money taken out of my taxes to cover something I never think about?!”
Because whether you’re aware of it or not, it does affect your safety.
More than half of the US population lives within waste sites. Overall, America’s disposal of hazardous waste has been given a D- rating.
Additionally, we waste over two trillions of treated drinking water every year due to aging pipes that haven’t been replaced in over 100 years that inevitably break down as a result.
During times of drought, this negligence can be deadly.
So what do we do?
An estimated 14 billion would need to be invested in America’s crumbling structures and more should be invested in public transportation.
It sounds like a daunting task.
As I see very frequently in politics now, any task that can’t be solved in a week or would require a redesign on a federal level, is immediately dismissed as the idea of significant change is too intimidating these days.
But it can be done.
Because we’ve seen it done before.
After Katrina, over 80% of New Orleans was underwater. But billions of dollars worth of investment rebuilt the city, and ten years later morphed into a thriving “it” town for young millennials; The likes of which would have been unbelievable even to locals before the investment and reconstruction.
We have the technology.
We have the ingenuity.
What we don’t have is a willingness to invest the people and their needs.
But if can can be done before, it can be done again.
The Sidhe, faeries, “the little people”, and the evolution of Celtic Mythology
I think I was about six when my grandmother told me after a rainstorm to not to step in a ring of mushrooms. After asking why, I was met with a grin and a wink and told that it would cause bad luck because “That’s a faerie ring. They can get angry when you step in their territory.”
And to answer the question in your head, no, I am not misspelling “fairy”. “Fairy” conjures up images of the Disney-esque , diminutive creatures that do nice things like grant wishes.
If you think that this image is the correct one and directly related to the mythology that goes back over 1,000 years well…in the words of Hogo from Labyrinth, “Shows what you know.”
Which brings me to my point.
Where did the story of Celtic faeries come from and how did they evolve over time?
Like Celtic history in general, the answer is–well–complicated. The origins of Celtic Faerie stories don’t have a specific date of origin. There are references here and there through the centuries, though historians can’t pinpoint when the stories officially began.
Additionally, Celtic culture changed DRASTICALLY around 400 AD thanks to St. Patrick, completely changing the landscape of what a myth actually was.
For those of you who didn’t go to Catholic school/come from cultures that were converted to Catholicism en masse, allow me to explain:
When Christianity was the new kid on the block and needed to convert some ax-wielding heathens, it started out with the more peaceful attitude of “well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”
Specifically, the missionaries were big on compromise…or at least turning a blind eye to the people they were converting who were merging their beliefs with the Roman monotheistic ones. Mostly, I’m assuming, because missionaries were tired of getting beheaded.
If you grew up Catholic, or watched a lot of Scorsese movies, then you have probably observed that every predominantly Catholic country has it’s own “flavor” of the religion. Ireland, Italy, the Philippines, France, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, and ect. all have their own customs or maybe a slightly different cultural perspective or customs when following the religion.
This is no accident.
And if non-Catholic Christians think they are exempt from this culture-meets-religion hybrid, well, think again!
Why else do you think we celebrate Christmas in December despite the fact that most historians and theologians agree that Jesus of Nazareth was most likely born near late Spring/early Summer?
It was to combat the European pagans from celebrating Winter Solstice in late December.
Again, we go back to the “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” philosophy; If you can’t stop these heathens from getting wasted, dancing, and lighting things on fire, then at least let them do it in the name of the Lord.
So what does the spread of religion have to do with faeries?
Well, there are some historians that claim that the spotty track record of early faerie lore may be due in part by the fact that before St. Paddy, they were worshiped AS Gods.
One of the VERY early legends of the Celts were the Tuatha de Danann, which means “tribe of Danu”. (Danu being the mother of all the Celtic gods who represents fertility, wisdom, and motherhood of all life). According to the story, this race of people who inhabited Ireland before the northwestern migration of the Celts allegedly had God-like powers. Legend has it that they went to war with the invaders and lost, driven under the land of their conquerors.
From there, they were called “Daoine Sidhe”.
Sidhe literally translates as “a mound of earth”. So the former “god-like” beings directly from Mother God herself that were driven underground were now the “Danu people from under the mound of earth”.
It is believed that this is one giant metaphor that by the Tribe of Danu being driven underground and out of sight, they were really driving Celtic paganism and their way of life underground and out of sight.
Christian missionaries may have not approved of worshiping “false gods”, BUT they would turn a blind eye to passing down fictitious stories of monsters and myths as long as it had a wholesome, moral value to it.
Introducing: the faeries.
…Also known as the “Sidhe” for short.
These faeries were not your mother’s faeries. They were godless, soul-sucking monsters that spoiled milk, were the cause of famine, still-births, and wayward young women.
Not being human, they didn’t have souls according to the church. As a result, they were wicked, devilish things that committed sins ranging from nasty pranks to just straight-up murdering people.
Each of these demoted pagan legends served a moral purpose in their stories over time, not dissimilar to the Brother’s Grimm interpretation of German/French folklore.
Additionally, contrary to popular belief, there is more than one type of faerie in lore (kind of like having multiple breeds of a dog). This gave ample opportunity for each faerie and their stories to showcase their sins or the sins of the stupid humans who got tempted and fooled by them.
Pictured above is the famous Leprechaun. Why these little bastards became so iconic in the US compared to all the other way more badass creatures is beyond me. But anyway, he is guilty of the sin of greed. Consumed with greed of keeping his coins to himself, he would kill any man who would try to seize them because Leprechauns are obsessive to know when even one coin is missing.
Below is a Gancanagh.
He is the Celtic equivalent to an incubus. So to answer your question, no, it is not a coincidence that the other person’s hand in that picture is suspiciously close to his sinful bits.
It’s also not a coincidence that he is smoking. Gancanagh are often depicted smoking a clay pipe or playing the flute. They are said to be very attractive (duh). After he convinces “women of loose morals” to indulge in temptation, he moves on for the next village, leaving the girl to pine for him until she withers away, rotting from the inside-out from withdrawing from his touch.
Sounds like one hell of an abstinence commercial, right?
It was intended to.
If you can’t keep your culture by burning an effigy under the moonlight without being called a sinner, at least you can pass down your culture through oral tradition by dismissing it as “fairy tales”.
Fairy tales that were once gods in their own right, but “driven underground” after the mass conversion to Christianity courtesy of St. Patrick.
To add insult to injury, most types of faeries were not even small. You only need to look at Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to see the Titania and Oberon were normal sized “people”, or the Tales of King Arthur to see the Morgana was around Arthur’s height.
Their alleged reduced height didn’t really begin until the late 18th century.
A reduced fear of them was soon to follow.
As well as a collective reduced interest in the original, less commercialized Celtic folklore.
And in the words of the famous Leprechaun Mad Sweeny from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods: “Mother church came along and turned us all into saints and trolls and faeries……General Mills did the rest.”
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